The Incredible Shrinking Evangelical Church in America
Instead, we are increasingly dependent on the leaders of parachurch ministries to fill the void left by Guy Smiley and his Church CEO pals. Men like Franklin Graham, Ravi Zacharias, and Greg Koukl are standing in the gap where God’s under-shepherds should be. Organizations like the Manhattan Declaration, Voices of Martyrs, ACLJ, and others are doing their utmost to protect, educate, and inform American believers on issues which should be front-and-center each and every Sunday morning across this nation.
To give credit where it is due, Pastor Rick Warren, when pressed to define homosexuality as sinful or acceptable, gave a suitable answer to Piers Morgan. He did his best to explain to an uninterested Morgan that we all have desires, it is whether we choose to act on these desires which determines whether we are acting sinfully or not. Now, Warren and the ministry at Saddleback is just as prone to trivial distraction as Hybels and Osteen, as evidenced by recent Sunday messages dealing with such important and hard-hitting topics like “Finding the Cause Within You”, “The Secret Behind 100x Living”, and “The Path to Personal Power”, but it is nice to hear that at least one Evangelical CEO can speak cogently on a topic of relevance.
This nation is increasingly reminiscent of the ancient civilizations of Judah and Israel, turning deaf ears to God’s word while slavering over the ear-ticklers who offer reassurance when there is none. The hole left by an absence of courageous Evangelical leadership is thankfully being filled by erudite apologists, sports stars, craft store CEOs, and laypeople, but it is to the shame of these svelte shysters who occupy the attentions of their flocks with visions of sugarplums and sunflowers.
“If I see aright, the cross of popular evangelicalism is not the cross of the New Testament. It is, rather, a new bright ornament upon the bosom of a self-assured and carnal Christianity. The old cross slew men, the new cross entertains them. The old cross condemned; the new cross amuses. The old cross destroyed confidence in the flesh; the new cross encourages it.” – A.W. Tozer
